The three largest European nations by population, Germany, France and the UK, held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, in an effort to avert a protracted war in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump, who has said he will decide within two weeks whether to join the assault on Tehran, denounced the talks with European leaders as a failure.
“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” he told reporters.
Araghchi had said Iran was not attending the talks in Geneva to negotiate anyway, only to listen.
However, he added, “There is no room for negotiations with the US [either] until the Israeli aggression stops,” as Iran and Israel traded salvoes of missiles and drones.
The US has been Israel’s chief ally and supporter in all its wars, and is the only country with major military assets deployed in the region, which might be able to alter the course of the war.
Germany, France and the UK – referred to as the E3 in the context of Iran talks – helped negotiate a 2015 treaty with Iran.
The 2015 treaty, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saw Iran agree to develop only peaceful nuclear programmes and to submit to independent monitoring. Russia, China and the United States also helped negotiate it, as did the UN.
But Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in May 2018, during his first term as president. The E3 tried to keep the treaty alive but failed. Iran abandoned it a year after the US did.
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